Professional Chewing gum industry meeting point

Sweet Tec – ZDS 22/09/2012

Just back from Lindau – Germany, where I attended this year’s edition of Sweet Tec, organized by ZDS. Interesting presentations about coating and all what is around it (ingredients, technology, …) Not necessarily about chewing gum, but also. For me it was special because, after many years (since 1998 if i remember well) giving lectures in ZDS, this is the fist time that I talk about something which is not chewing gum. This time was about chewy candy technology, which of course has some points in common with chewing gum but it has also its specificities.
Besides the usual companies attending these seminars (Capol, Danisco -now DuPont-, Chocotech, Beneo-Palatinit, Roquette, AZO, Munters…) I found specially important to note the presence (with booth) of two companies offering Stevia. One of them is Cargill, the other is NP Sweet A/S. While the first is well-known, I was not aware of the second, which is a joint-venture between Nordzucker and PureCircle. This follows, and reinforces the trend of this new ingredient, at least in Europe (I posted something about it already in this blog). However, no chewing gum has been launched in the market yet. I could chew samples (lab scale) and they were very nice, so I’m sure we will see some chewing gum with Stevia in the near future.